Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid
by TheBlueSheep
Summary: The stories told are not always the same as the stories remembered. When two kids appear behind Katsura's door and ask about a friend who died long ago, he thinks it's best not to tell them the whole tale. [Massive spoilers for the second movie. Character death. Angst. No pairings.]


**Disclaimer:** No

**Quote:** Ed Sheeran – "The A Team" - (I am aware that the entire song doesn't really fit with the basic theme of this fic, but just let me be an asshole and take those lines out of context this time, okay? I really do like the song, and those four lines are a part of what inspired me to write this fic.)

**Rating:** T

**Pairings: **None intended

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**WARNINGS:**

Spoilers for the second movie

Character death

Angst

_I'm serious, guys._

**_You have been warned! Twice!_**

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**Author's notes**: This is probably the only character death fic I'll ever write. The idea has been torturing me for quite some time now and I figured it's about time I shared it with you guys. Please mind that while writing this I assumed that the reader has seen the second movie, so there will not be any lengthy explanations about what's going on. If you have not yet seen the movie, I strongly suggest you watch it. It's a masterpiece.

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**Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid**

_An angel will die_

_Covered in white_

_Closed eye_

_And hoping for a better life_

_- Ed Sheeran_

**Chapter 1: The Stories Told**

"I do not know where you heard that name, but Sakata Gintoki is dead. Has been dead for fifteen years. Go home kids, unless you want trouble," Katsura said and attempted to close the door.

"Wait, Katsura-san!"

"Hold up, Zura!"

"It's not Zura, it's Katsura." Katsura stopped. "Wait, how do you... The only ones who called me that were..." He looked at the two behind his door more closely and saw the resolve in their eyes. He knew that look. It was almost the same as the one the freshly recruited young soldiers had. One that told him they were ready to give up anything to reach their goals. These kids wouldn't leave until they got their answers. And he had the feeling he had seen them somewhere before.

"Fine, come on in," he sighed. He led them inside and motioned to the couch. They sat a little awkwardly while Katsura went to the kitchen and turned the kettle on. His guests were unexpected and uninvited, but it wouldn't hurt to show a little hospitality. Katsura always took the chance to be polite and well-mannered whenever time and situation allowed it.

Until the water boiled, he subtly studied the kids. They weren't really kids anymore – both of them probably around twenty years old – but their expressions and the way they were dressed made them look much younger. The boy – what was his name again? Shinpachi? – was normal, bland, even, his round glasses the only part of him worth mentioning. The girl, Kagura, was wearing red china styled dress and a pair of black and gold hair ornaments on the either side of her head. Her unnaturally pale skin and the fact that she had left her purple umbrella by the door made Katsura doubt that she was human. Not that it really mattered to him. Long ago he would have drawn his sword at any alien, but over the past ten years he had learned to channel his hate from Amanto in general to the ones directly to blame for ruining the country and killing his friends.

When the water finally started boiling, he made tea into three cups and poured crackers into a bowl.

"So what do you want to know?" he asked as he served the tea and crackers and took a seat in the armchair opposing them.

"We need to know what happened to Sakata Gintoki," the boy said. "Did the one called Shiroyasha really die? What happened?"

Katsura stilled. He slowly picked up his cup and stared at the hot liquid inside. "And why do you need to know that?"

"I'm sorry Katsura-san, but we're not too sure ourselves. We might be able to figure it out if you tell us, though."

Katsura sighed again. "You two understand that I do not talk about this lightly?" When they nodded, he continued, "Sakata Gintoki– or Shiroyasha is dead. Of that, I am sure." He looked at the calendar on the wall. "It was fifteen years ago. Today, in fact. The battle that day was brutal. There was a group of mercenary Amanto called Enmi and they had some odd weapons with them. They took down a fourth of our army even before half an hour passed and we could do nothing but watch until our cannons damaged their engines enough that they had to land. After that, Gintoki and I took a small squadron and together we invaded their ship. It was supposed to be enough with Shiroyasha with us, but it wasn't. The enemy was more skilled than we expected and there were just too many of them. So, as we struggled with taking down the troopers, we sent Gintoki ahead to fight with their leader. At least I think it was their leader. There was something weird about that guy... Well, whatever. The point is, even Gintoki didn't walk away from that battle unscathed. I don't know what exactly happened, but when I saw him again, his arm was bleeding pretty badly and as far as I could tell, he was exhausted."

"But that wasn't why Gin-chan died, was it?" the girl in china style dress asked, making Katsura briefly wonder about the affectionate honorific. "He's not the guy who would die just from some wounds, yes? Something else happened, yes?"

"Yes, that is right. Even with the Enmi down, the rest of the enemy army was still very much operational, the battle was far from over, and Gintoki wasn't the one to die _just_ from some wounds. That's why I didn't stop him when I saw him like that," he took a deep breath. "I should have forced him to catch his breath for a few minutes, should have stopped the bleeding. But Gintoki was unapproachable during battles. He was the one most targeted by the enemy, so he had to keep his distance from everyone else. He always fought alone, not caring about his injuries or how tired he was. He just kept on going until the end. That's why we called him Shiroyasha. And that's why I let it be. I thought he would be alright as always. I thought he would come back as always."

"What happened, Katsura-san?"

Katsura set his cup on the table, stood, and walked to the window. The sun was setting, painting the sky above the high towers of Edo with crimson red and honey gold. He rather regretted having agreed to talk. But then again, it had already been fifteen years and he wasn't as stuck in the past as Takasugi. Besides, somehow he had the feeling his guests really ought to know what happened. At least most of it...

"Zura?"

It truly was a beautiful sunset.

"He didn't come back. That's what happened. It took some two hours before the battle ended. I stopped seeing him halfway through the second hour. The next time I saw him was when we searched the field, counting the dead and saving as many of the wounded as we could. He was laying face down on the ground, covered in blood and not moving an inch. By the time I turned him over, I had realised that he was dying. Not dead yet, but unconscious and barely clinging on to life.

"He was stabbed right through the chest a few centimetres left from his heart with an odd weapon. The wound was too wide for a sword, but too short for a spear. We never figured out what it could have been. Heaven knows we tried finding out and killing the bastard responsible for his death. It must have been a hell of a fighter to be able to strike Shiroyasha from behind. Or just extremely lucky, considering that Gintoki must have been weakened from his fight before," he added as an afterthought. "Anyway, we got him to our medic as fast as we could, but it was already too late. His injuries were too severe. There was nothing else we could do but to make his last moments comfortable. He fought for hours, but eventually it was too much even for him. Gintoki died that night."

"But Gin-chan wouldn't..."

"Humans are more fragile than we like to believe, young miss. A few hits at the right spots and even the strongest will be brought down. In the end, Gintoki was just a human, too."

The kids behind him fell silent, except for a quiet sniffle. He didn't need to turn to know that at least one of them was crying. He guessed the girl.

Then, "Did Gin-chan say anything before he... passed on?"

Katsura turned. They both had tears in their eyes. So somehow they had known him after all. "No," he said. "He died without regaining consciousness."

"Oh," the girl said, her shoulders drooping. The boy lowered his head.

"At least that is what we told everyone who asked. Actually, he did wake up right before he died, but by that time, the amount of blood he had lost and the pain he must have been in... Well, it would make anyone delirious, so I'm not sure if he even knew what was happening. Not in the very end, at least. His last words didn't make any sense anyway and they were definitely not something we could tell to the soldiers at that time. He said, 'The only one who can kill me, is me.' I do not know what he meant by that... I never really did understand his train of thought," he finished, shaking his head. The two kids exchanged a glance.

"Now it's your turn. Tell me why are you here, how do you know me, and how did you know Gintoki?"

"It was him that introduced you to us, Katsura-san," the boy said, wiping his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that Gin-san was not supposed to die fifteen years ago. And that originally, he didn't."

"Explain."

"Katsura-san, the weapon that... killed him – could it have been a bokutou?"

"A bokutou?" he asked, surprised. He remembered what that doctor had said fifteen years ago when they were desperate to follow any clue that could lead them to their friend's killer. A short wide wound with ragged edges; nothing that could be caused by a normal blade. But a bokutou... "I guess it could match. But who on earth would be crazy enough to fight in such a battle with a bokutou?"

"That would be Gin-chan, yes? Shinpachi, do you think Gin-chan really killed his past self?"

"It would only make sense. Tama-san said he went back exactly fifteen years. But if Gin-san found no other solution, I don't know if we can..."

"Gin-chan would never give up if it was us! We have to try! Old man Gengai said he'd have Tama and the time machine fixed in three days, yes? We have until then to figure everything out, yes?"

"Yes, but we can't act reckless. Gengai-san also said that we need to be very careful when messing with timelines. I mean, he went that far to give us a future... What if we end up destroying everything he fought for?"

Katsura coughed politely to remind them of his presence and the fact that he had no idea whatsoever what they were talking about.

"Ah, I'm very sorry, Katsura-san." Katsura gave the boy credit for actually looking apologetic. "Will you please listen to our story? It might be a little hard to believe, but... could you please wait until we finish?"

Katsura nodded, and the kids started their story cutting in to each other and correcting facts as they went on. It was a good thing that they had asked for him to listen until the end, because it really wasn't easy to hear how one of his oldest friends who had been lost to the war even before he could hit adulthood, was said to have a life in the future. Even more unbelievable was that the same friend supposedly more or less had a purpose in the said future as a Yorozuya. Shiroyasha doing random odd jobs? Katsura almost smiled at the absurdity of the idea, but he had to admit that it would have been very much like Gintoki to do something as ridiculous as that.

He frowned when he heard about Gintoki's disappearance five years ago a little after the first outbreak of a new illness called the White Plague and how they found out that he had been the one to spread it after being infected by the Enmi fifteen years ago. Apparently Gintoki had realised it before anyone else and asked a mechanic called Gengai to build him a time machine and bring his past self from five years ago into the future. The story was confusing to be frank, but Katsura held his promise and kept quiet until the tale was told.

"He gave up his life for our future – for everyone's future. We don't want to live in a future without him. So, we're going to get him back no matter what."

"We're definitely going to see that stupid face of his again and then beat him up for leaving us like that, yes?" the girl finished.

Katsura thought for a minute. The kids were fidgeting on the couch, obviously waiting for him to say something. "So let me get this straight," he started finally. "After being brought five years to the future, Gintoki found out that he himself was, in fact, the one who destroyed the world. And even though it was completely not his fault, he still travelled back in time and killed his past self fifteen years ago, thus erasing his own existence along with the virus from all following timelines and changing the future into the safe and peaceful one that it is now."

"That's about it, yes."

"And so want to travel back in time and save Gintoki so that he and his, uh, White Plague infected body could once again destroy Earth?"

"No. We're planning to change the fact that he was infected with it in the first place and saving both the Earth and Gin-san at the same time."

"Aha... And if I may ask, how are you planning to do that?"

"That is the part we haven't quite figured out yet."

"How interesting," Katsura said slowly in deep thought. "Gintoki really had no other option left when he decided to kill himself. It was also probably the best decision he could make under the circumstances. It eliminated the virus entirely with only one casualty. If you want both Gintoki and the world to be saved, you must get rid of the Enmi without anyone at all getting infected. But how do that without getting the Shiroyasha involved? As long as he exists in the past, he'll fight. You'd have to keep him off the field before the battle even starts."

"Ah! Katsura-san, could it be that you remembered?"

He gave them what he hoped was a light smile, but by the way the two reacted was probably the complete opposite of it. "I don't know what it is I have to remember, but I can tell you that it was truly a very amusing story and I'm sure Gintoki would've enjoyed it. He would be thrilled to have travelled in time to save the world. And I must say that in general your story works out. But Gintoki died a long time ago. Please do not disrespect him any further. Let him rest in peace. After everything he did, he deserves at least that much. Now I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"But Zura-" she started, but the boy raised his hand and stopped her.

"Yes, Katsura-san. Let's get going, Kagura-chan. We have a lot to do."

Katsura accompanied them to the door.

"Oh, and one more thing," he said when they had their shoes on and were ready to leave. "Gintoki lived and died as a true samurai. Do not dare to try and take that from him, or you will face the sharp edge of my sword. I promise you, it has not dulled over the years."

The girl opened her mouth to say something, but the boy stopped her again. This time she looked like she might hit him with that umbrella.

"I understand, Katsura-san," he said, back straight and eyes honest. "I promise that this information will not be used to bring any harm to either your or Sakata Gintoki's name and honour. It will stay strictly between us unless you grant the permission to talk about it to anyone else. This is what I promise. Just... please promise us you'll try to remember. We'll be having a meeting tonight at Snack Otose and we're hoping to see you there."

"Very well," Katsura said even though he didn't have a clue about where Snack Otose was or what he should be remembering. He just wanted them to leave.

The boy pushed the girl out before him and that finally earned him a perfectly placed punch to the stomach. Katsura observed with fascination how the boy still bravely managed to bow, holding his stomach gingerly, before closing the door after them.

"_Geez, did you have to hit so hard?"_

Katsura mostly accidentally overheard them through the thin door as they went down the stairs.

"_Gin-chan once told me that when a guy tries to boss me around, I can hit him where it really hurts as hard as I like. You should be happy you still have your balls, yes? But Shinpachi, what do we do now? There's no one who knows Gin-chan and the past better than Zura, yes? We need him." _

"_Yeah... For now let's just hope he remembers before it's too late, okay, Kagura-chan? If he doesn't, then... well, we'll figure something out if we have to."_

Katsura first frowned at those words, then shrugged. He was fairly sure that those kids had more than a few screws loose.

He slowly walked back to the couch and sat on it. Then he pulled his legs up close to his body, leaned his head against his knees, and wrapped his arms around himself, trying to stop the involuntary shivering. It took him a few minutes of deep controlled breathing before he was sure that the unexpected strain of old memories wouldn't break him down right then and there.

What he had told those kids wasn't the complete truth, but it wasn't really a lie either. It was just a gentler version of what had happened, a fiction for those who had not experienced the desperation and the sheer ugliness of a war. Not all memories were meant to be shared and the details of Gintoki's death were definitely the prime example of that.

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**Author's notes**: If you find any typos/misspellings/grammar mistakes, then I would appreciate if you would let me know. Reviews are always welcome. They are the source of my inspiration.

Coming next: **Chapter 2: The Stories Remembered**


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